Woven Works Park
2018
Greensboro, NC
1.3 acres
Concrete, steel, illumination, landscaping
Commissioned by City of Greensboro, NC
Description:
Woven Works Park is one of four major public artworks located on Greensboro’s Downtown Greenway. Inspired by the city’s innovative textile industry, I designed this interactive park to be a playful space accessible to community members of all ages and abilities. The park consists of paths, gardens, and six sculptural elements that take formal inspiration from processes used to produce denim fabric. I reinterpreted the spinning, twisting, weaving found in textile production as forms of play and expressed them in sculptural elements evocative of looms, yarns, bobbins and spindles. The site is organized by a grid of paths and planting beds that replicate the warp and weft pattern that makes up the twill weave in denim blue jeans, the most recognizable textile produced in Greensboro. Within this emerging and disappearing grid, six interactive elements including a bike rack, donor recognition wall, carousel bench, sandbox, and jungle gym, hop garden native pollinator garden, and site furniture are destinations within the park. The site also has two custom bus shelters that echo the same same weaving themes and colors found throughout the site.
Elements within Woven Works Park:
Revolution Cone is a 48’ tall spindle that anchors the park. Inspired by yarns being wound around a spindle, the galvanized steel pole is anchored by 101 stainless steel cables that visitors enter by way of a spiral path. The base of the sculpture is a wheelchair accessible rotating turntable carousel bench which is moved by hand. From this platform, one can see the surrounding city as if being wound up in yarn.
Selvedge Sandbox is inspired by the yarns passing through the power looms at Cone Mills and the bicyclists on the greenway. In this interactive sculpture, a loom-like rake attached to a bicycle wheel can be rotated to make patterns within the sandbox like a Japanese Zen garden.
Jungle Jeans is inspired by the indigo blue and white yarns of a denim weave, reimagined in three dimensions. A rubber play surface with a twill weave pattern is the base of a grid of square columns painted blue and white. Colored horizontal and vertical ladders encourage exploration. The sculpture appears all blue or all white depending on where it’s viewed from. Jungle Jeans meets all safety regulations for public play structures.
Sit and Spin is a simple seating area inspired by the iconic Woolworth’s spinning stools and lunch counter that David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., and Joseph McNeil used to protest racial segregation in the pivotal 1960 Woolworth Sit-In in downtown Greensboro. Sit and Spin consists of two sets of stools and benches to encourage conversation and connection.
Spool Donor Wall is an interactive wall of color-coded spinning aluminum spools that recognizes major donors by encouraging visitors to actively seek out names in a kind of game.
Over, Under, and Through consists of earth mounds and concrete culverts. Inspired by the act of weaving, the culverts are oriented to the warp/weft grid of the paths that make up the park and can be climbed over or through.
Loom Bike Racks are inspired by yarns passing over machinery found within the White Oak denim mill.
Loom Bus Shelters are inspired by the green Draper floor looms that meld yarns in the X and Y directions into a single piece of fabric.
